The Democrats' "Better Deal"

The Democratic Party has announced a semi-populist new platform they're calling the Better Deal. So far there are three planks:

• Tough anti-trust enforcement;
• Fighting high prices on prescription drugs;
• Create 10 million jobs through a $275 billion infrastructure program and "targeted tax breaks" rewarding companies that create high-wage jobs

I'm all for the first two items, and I support more infrastructure spending. But I think targeted tax breaks are a sham; if you want to cut corporate taxes, just cut them, don't add a hundred pages of new regulations.

On the whole I think this is ok, but not particularly inspirational. To make this good politics there would have to be more specifics: what monopolies are we taking on? What is the strategy for cutting drug prices, and how would people benefit? What are we going to build?